V. Sattui Winery Tour and Tasting

Traffic was not bad at all and we hit the winery around 20 minutes early, so we drove up into Saint Helena before heading back down to the winery.  We arrived still a couple minutes early and wandered around taking some pictures before meeting at the fountain for our 10:30 tour.  We were the first to arrive, and eventually some more people arrived and we were off.  Turned out to be a popular day for visiting the vineyar as we would up having at least 8 groups of people along for the tour of the vineyard and winemaking facilities.  Chris was our tour guide, and gave an excellend and informative tour, following which we all headed down to the Cellar Club tasting room for the real reason we were all there :-)

Erin had made arrangements for a special Gold Member Tasting with Jay, who also works in the cellar, but due to some miscommunication in outlook, it wasn't properly scheduled, so we enjoyed a special tasting as part of the normal cellar club tasting, with some special cheeses just for us and more personal attention.

..at least when possible, as the entire time we were there, the cellar club was packed!  At one point it seems that every possible tasting station was filled...there must have been 100 people tasting at once in the room.

Over the course of the next three hours, we each tasted a number of wines and snacked on four cheeses:

Cheese: An incredible Gouda (have yet to find one like it here in Holland...and I've been looking since I got back!), Havarti, Tartufa-a truffle cheese, and Piave Veccio-similar to a parmagian.  We were instructed to pair the Gouda with a Cabernet, Havarti with Chardonnay, Tartufa with Pinot, and Piave Veccio with Zinfandel and Cabernet.  I hoped we'd get enough tastes to make each pairing.

I needn't have worried!

Wines - 19 for each of us!
1) Sattui Family Cardonnay
2) Napa Valley Chardonnay
3) Vittorio Sauvignon Blanc
4) 2007 White Riesling - Not yet released at the time of our tasting, was intended for a staff only tasting that day but due to the number of people, it was shared with us.

  This was one of my favorites of the day, we we would up putting in an order for a case of this!
5) Gamay Rouge
6) Henry Ranch Pinot Noir
7) Henry Ranch Merlot
8) Pilgrim Zinfandel
9) Eagle Point Zinfandel
10) Napa Valley Cabernet
11) Preston Vineyard Cabernet
12) Morisoli Vineyard Cabernet
13) Crow Ridge Zinfandel
14) Syrah
15) Quaglia Zinfandel
16) Muscat
17) Angelica
18) Madeira
19) Port

What an amazing group of wines!  I had so much fun tasting all of these, and wound up buying some of the Angelica and Madeira as well as going in with Erin on a case of the new Riesling when it is released and reserving a case of futures for the new Howell Mountain Zinfandel that was being made available for reserving the next weekend.

Erin then brought me into the special gold tasting rooom where we should have had our reserve tasting and we examined some of the old vintages stored there and had Jay take a photo of us, and then we headed up to the main deli and tasting bar where I wanted to look for a magnet like I had bought at Andretti.  What a mob scene!!!  The deli was PACKED with people, as were the grounds.  I thought it was busy down in the cellar, it was at leadst 5x as packed up here!  I got my magnet and off we ran to head up to the next stop on the tour...